1731 in literature

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The year 1731 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• The Gentleman's Magazine is launched by Edward Cave

New books

• Anonymous - The Life of Mr. Cleveland, Natural Son of Oliver Cromwell
• Corporate authorship - The Gentleman's Magazine
• Nicholas Amhurst as "Caleb D'Anvers" - A Collection of Poems
• Thomas Bayes - Divine Benevolence
• Samuel Boyse - Translations and Poems Written on Several Subjects
• Ralph Cudworth - A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (posth.)
• Robert Dodsley - An Epistle from a Footman in London to the Celebrated Stephen Duck
  • - A Sketch of the Miseries of Poverty
• Henry Fielding - The Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb
• Aaron Hill - Advice to the Poets
• William King - An Essay on the Origin of Evil (transl. from Latin)
• William Law - The Case of Reason
• William Oldys - A Dissertation Upon Pamphlets
• Alexander Pope - An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Burlington ("Epistle to Burlington," and known to contemporaries as "Of False Taste")
• Abbé Prévost - Manon Lescaut
• Elizabeth Rowe - Letters Moral and Entertaining
• Jean Terrasson - Sethos, Taken from Private Memoirs of the Ancient Egyptians
• Joseph Trapp - The Works of Virgil

New drama

• Matthew Concanen, Edward Roome, & Sir William Yonge^{[disambiguation needed ]} - The Jovial Crew (opera, adapted from Richard Brome's A Jovial Crew)
• Theophilus Cibber - The Lover
• Charles Coffey & John Mottley - The Devil to Pay (musical adaptation of the play by Thomas Jevon)
• Thomas Cooke - The Triumphs of Love and Honour
• Henry Fielding - The Letter-Writers
• Philip Frowde - Philotas
• Aaron Hill - Athelwold
• Charles Johnson - The Tragedy of Medea
• George Lillo - The London Merchant
  • - George Barnwell
• David Mallet - Eurydice
• Joseph Mitchell - The Highland Fair
• James Ralph - The Fall of the Earl of Essex

Births

• November 26 - William Cowper, poet (died 1800)
• December 12 - Erasmus Darwin, naturalist (died 1802)

Deaths

• April 21 - Daniel Defoe (born c.1660)
• May 11 - Mary Astell, English feminist
• June 20 - Ned Ward, wit and essayist
• August 28 - Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery, Jacobite leader and author
• December 26 - Antoine Houdar de la Motte, dramatist (born 1672)